The former National Security Agency contractor joined
Twitter
on Tuesday, and quickly earned a big following. “Can you hear me now?” he tweeted. Less than an hour later, the verified account had 152,000 followers. He is only following one account: the NSA.

Mr. Snowden is controlling the account himself, according to a Twitter spokesman. The @Snowden handle belonged to someone else but had been inactive for three years, so Twitter gave it to Mr. Snowden, the spokesman said.

Mr. Snowden has been living in exile in Moscow to avoid facing prosecution in the U.S. for leaking government secrets. In his Twitter biography and first few tweets, the former NSA worker poked fun at the U.S. and his current state. “I used to work for the government,” he wrote. “Now I work for the public.”

“Do you think they check passports at the border?” Mr. Snowden wrote about Mars. “Asking for a friend.”

By joining Twitter, Mr. Snowden is tapping into a digital community, a large portion of which opposes the kinds of government surveillance he revealed. Twitter in the past has defended the company’s role as a platform for free speech, though it has taken steps to suspend accounts that are aligned with terror groups, for example.